Tales of Terror: The Spider and the Fly
by SaintHeartwing
Summary: Zim is insistent that the old house down on Maple isn't dangerous. Nothing lives there. He'll just get the meteorite that fell down in there...and get out. Well...Zim has never been a very smart person. And he's never been so wrong about a place being harmless.


"You're in big trouble."

The green-skinned...STUDENT...just smirked and sat back in his chair, a smug expression on his face. Councilor Thildari frowned darkly, adjusting his very glassy glasses that made it impossible to see behind the lenses. The likable school counselor for local school had refined grey hair and always wore white, looking almost like an angel as he sat illuminated by the light filtering in from his office window. He steepled his hands, tilting his head slightly to the side as Zim just kept smirking.

"You know at first I thought the compost or toilet of the school had backed up, but no. I found out that you soaked...Dib's underwear. In garbage." Mr. Thildari remarked quietly as he shook his head back and forth. "Our school is now FILLED with dogs, and Dib is currently trapped at the top of the flagpole, surrounded by every canine in the local tri-state area. Every canine that isn't, for some reason, barking furiously at Ms. Bitters, who is now hiding in her closet in her classroom." The councilor intoned, a cheery little cartoon spider Charlotte on a web over his desk with a note that read "Reading is Scary Fun" to his right as he looked the little bug over.

"Yes. Am I not amazing?" Zim inquired, putting a hand on his chest and beaming proudly.

"...how did you even GET his underwear?" The councilor wanted to know, giving a dark frown. "Did you sneak into his home?"

"Oh, yes. And then let the underwear simmer in a mixture of Zim's own invention. I'm really just so brilliant, sometimes it amazes me how all of you can stand it." The annoying, grating little fly remarked.

"...believe me, we _can't_." Mr. Thildari muttered. "Zim, do you not understand that what you did was wrong? And not just wrong, but disgusting? And frankly, STUPID, because you admitted as much to Dib's own sister, who told us...after she had stopped laughing?"

"I fail to see the issue here." Zim said. "Dib is up a flagpole. **Victory for Zim!** "

"Don't you think there are some things you're just better off leaving well alone?" Mr. Thildari asked. "Times when you should just step back and say "Maybe I'd better not"? Do you EVER have that thought, Zim?" The councilor's dark voice inquired, an edge to his normally soft tone.

"Nope." Zim said nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair. "Why are you even talking to Zim?"

"The principal would have handled you, but I insisted I talk to you. I wanted to try and get some sense into you, Zim. To give you a warning." The councilor insisted quietly. "Listen. Know when to stop. Know when to just say "no". Know when something isn't worth it, Zim."

Zim just smirked. "Oh, please. I am Zim. I know what's best for Zim. Now if you'll excuse me, Zim has to acquire a very special meteorite!" He remarked, waving a dismissive hand as he exited the room, laughing uproariously as Mr. Thildari folded his arms over his chest, a dark, furious glare following Zim as he left.

 _Wrong. Answer._

...

...

...

..."There's nothing in here."

Zim snickered to himself as he looked up at the abandoned house on Maple. He shook his head back and forth, an amused expression on his features as his antannae hung low over his head. The faintly insectoid, green-skinned alien invader waved a dismissive clawed hand in the air as the moon hung in the late night sky, casting a faint, almost ethereal glow on the enormous house as he sneered at GIR. "Can you believe people actually are frightened of this place? It's a building. Nothing more."

"It gives me the **spookies**." GIR said, nervously quivering, the little blue-eyed robot gulping slightly as Zim rolled his eyes and pointed at his PAK on his back.

"I need to collect samples. The meteorite crashed into the back of this old house and thanks to my INGENIOUS monitoring of huuuuman communications from their space observation organization, I know it's got precious minerals I can use for my experiments. Free resources GIR. How can I not take it?" He inquired with an air of typical Zim smugness. "We'll just go inside and find where it landed."

GIR just shivered some more, Zim rolling his eyes as he walked towards the creaky front steps, the place silent and solemn, only a single howling wind that made it creak and breathe like a giant lung giving any sound to the place. The Irken Invader of Earth reached out with his black gloved hand, opening up the door and heading inside, glancing about with a look of clear distate on his features, sticking his long, worm-like tongue out in disgust.

The place was covered in cobwebs and dust, the walls cracked and with some of it open and exposed, revealing old drywall that hadn't been patched up in years. There were a few dilapidated pieces of furniture strewn around, some old brown chairs and an overturned couch, the rug beneath Zim's boots moldy and ratty. An ugly, nasty smell threatened to overtake Zim as he kept moving through the living room, pushing aside some cobwebs as he made towards the kitchen. He poked his head inside as the house breathed around him again, frowning a bit as he saw more and more cobwebs covering every single cupboard and drawer in the room. The faded yellow paint job was gaudy and ugly, and the tiles were cracked almost as much as the wallpaper.

And a single kitchen knife was embedded in the table before him. He blinked at this, walking towards it. Unlike everything else, the knife wasn't dusty or covered in cobwebs. He looked it over, seeing what was written on the table.

"GET OUT".

He "harrumphed". If this was Dib's idea of a joke to keep him away from getting what was in that meteorite, it wasn't very funny and it wasn't very effective. Zim HAD no sense of humor!

Wait. He blinked stupidly at that, then smacked his own face, dragging it down somewhat and moaning. "Ugh! Stupid Dib-Stink! Your little prank doesn't scare me. I'm getting that meteorite." He snapped, GIR nervously inching his way across a nearby playroom that was connected to the living room as a rocking horse sat in the corner, lonely and sad, next to a small collection of LEGOs that had been arranged into a little scene, showing Sam and Frodo from Lord of the Rings fighting off a bunch of Shelobs. GIR looked it over, picking up one of the large LEGO spiders, waggling it around in the air. "I'll get you my pretties!" He wisecracked, putting it back down before lifting Sam and Frodo up, beginning to play with them.

Zim rolled his eyes at this, groaning as he made his way towards the stairway to the top floor. With each step up, it creaked and CREEEAAAAKED, Zim growling a bit. He would just use his PAK legs to scurry up past this annoyingly creaky set of steps, but the house was so old he feared he'd just fall through the drywall if he tried. So he continued up the steps as the house creaked and moaned once again before he reached the top of the stairs.

More cobwebs, and a nasty, dusty smell. He groaned as he covered his face slightly, almost gagging, and Zim turned to look inside the nearby bathroom slightly to his right. He opened it up, the mirror cracked, and the bathtub within had large webs stretching across it, the toilet in pieces and the sink's paint color old and faded. Yet as Zim looked at the webs within the bathtub, he realized something. Not one single spider. He hadn't seen a single spider despite the enormity of cobwebs all around him in this house. That was rather odd. Something about it made a nagging, worried feeling rise in his mind, a feeling that he almost always ignored. He shook his head slightly, backing out of the bathroom and turning, heading into the nearby bedroom as he peeked about.

Unlike the other rooms, this one was almost pristine. It had soft pink walls, and a finely-made-up bed with lovely red blankets and white sheets that was a perfect size for a child. The windows were circular, like a porthole of a submarine, a little stepping stool set up next to the small toy chest beneath it. Zim could imagine the owner of this room trying to peek out through the window to look out at what lay outside, imagining it had been a very young girl. Especially since the toy chest was filled with young girly toys and lots of pony dolls. In particular, Zim noticed a little teddy bear, pink and white, that lay on a nearby rocking chair in the corner of the room...

A chair that was rocking back and forth, the teddy bear on the ground in front of it. As if someone had just used it and left in a hurry.

He inwardly cringed again, inching back out of this bedroom. Where was that damn meteorite, he thought to himself as he made his way towards the room at the far end of the hall, opening it up. He blinked slightly, examining the door, which was only slightly open, and he carefully pushed it. With a slight creak it swung open, revealing a bedroom that was dusty and in disrepair, a king-sized mattress and a desk nearly broken as if by some massive weight. And for good reason. There was some trace amounts of what appeared to be an oddly-colored rock on the bed, and a large hole in the roof.

Ah ha. Zim grinned to himself, rubbing his gloved hands together as he inched around the room, looking for the meteorite, scurrying about. His maroon/red eyes narrowed intensely as he picked up a tiny fragment, his PAK extending a small goggle-like set of scanners to his eyes. He looked it over, the device finding the trail led out of the bedroom and into the hallway...noticing it simply ended. He stared slightly, taking the device off his eyes as he looked up, noticing a small attic door above, with a string pull on the bottom. How...who?

Was it Dib? He frowned a bit. If it was, it didn't matter. He was an Irken Invader. "And Invaders fear NOTHING." He buzzed angrily, leaping up into the air slightly, waving his gloved hands at the string before taking the biggest jump he could, managing to grab hold of it. He tugged it down, the ladder sliding down and crashing onto the floor with a thudding finality, Zim "harrumphing". "GIR!" He called out. "I'm heading for the attic!"

"Okey-dokey-lokey!" GIR remarked cheerily. "Imma gonna keep playin' with LEGOs."

"...ugh." Zim grunted as he began climbing up into the attic, hesitantly rising higher and higher as he heard an odd sound. What was...what was it? It sounded...slightly high pitched, and...it seemed to be coming from all around him. He blinked as he looked around, the attic pitch black and dark save for...something off in the distance by a covered-up window. There, faintly casting a tiny bit of muffled light under a sheet, was the meteorite. The shape was unmistakable. Grinning in delight, Zim raced towards it, ripping off the sheet.

 _Wrong move._

For as he did so, the thing that was covering up the window dropped down, and Zim saw firsthand what was inside the attic, and making that noise.

 **Spiders**. Thousands upon thousands of spiders, all chittering at once, eyes staring at Zim as he stood frozen in shock, the form before him rising up, tall and imposing and terrifying. It seemed to be too tall for words, suspended on large, sharp legs, white eyes staring pitilessly down at him as Zim quivered on the spot. The meteorite in his hands dropped to the floor with a thud as he heard the thing speak.

"You can always catch decent prey with the promise of something that's nice...and _SHINY_." It said, the glistening light blue meteorite quivering in its clawed grip before the spiders descended on Zim all at once, and his screams were muffled...and then ultimately silenced.

Two piercing white eyes slipped silently up the web that bound the alien invader, it's body looming over him. A thick, bulbous-ended thing began to emerge from it's body, sliding down, down, Zim's clothes having been quickly eaten away and removed like the rest of his clothes so the webs could more easily stick. Now the ovipositor rested against Zim's anal passage, brushing up against it and then pushing swiftly inside. Eight chitinous legs curled around the body of the screaming, struggling Zim, the enormous spider-like being thrusting its thick flesh into Zim's anus until he stopped struggling.

There was nothing he could do. One by one small, pool ball-shaped eggs began to fill him over and over, giving him a new purpose. A new mission. Zim's swelling belly quivered as the labor began. Dozens of warm eggs swirled with a life of their own in a tight mass in the makeshift womb. He could feel the heat, almost unbearable, emanating from deep in his stomach. He was beginning to lose count of how many clutches he was being bred with, time no longer seemed to matter. The healthy vigor of the life inside the alien invader swelled against the walls of his green belly, and he felt clawed hands massage over him, sighing in delight. The spider knew Zim would birth a lovely, lovely clutch full of strong workers that would serve the Hive.

...

...

...

...GIR yawned a bit as he laid down by the LEGOs, lying on his back as he held up the little LEGO of Frodo Baggins, waving it about in the air, a plate of cupcakes, scones and other baked goods he'd stuffed inside him to bring on this trip lying nearby. The desire to sleep was overcoming him as he bounced his head back and forth, singing a soft little rhyme. "Goodnight Moon. Goodnight room. Goodnight crumbs from my macaroon." He remarked. "Goodnight LEGOs, goodnight Frodo, please say Hi to Uncle Bilbo! Goodnight windows, goodnight dust, goodnight day old cupcake crusts!"

"Shh." A soft voice intoned as GIR yawned again.

"And goodnight to the giant spider going "hush"." GIR mumbled before conking out, a form gently picking him up and carrying him up the stairs and into the little girl's bedroom, tucking him inside the covers with a gentle pat on the robot's head.

"You get some sleep, little one. I'll have some breakfast ready for you. Maybe...eggs?" It bemusedly intoned before sliding out the door.

...

...

...

...meanwhile, Zim lay trapped inside the web. He was hopelessly stuck, unable to move, the tight bonds almost digging into his now-exposed green flesh. The silken strands held him fast as he lay suspended high above the floor, belly sagging, whimpering quietly as the many spiders scuttled around him, eagerly awaiting their new brothers and sisters. There was nothing he could do.

Nothing but wait.

...and pray for death.


End file.
